Binding Energy

Discussion

text from the nobelprize.org website

F. W. Aston discovered in 1920 the key experimental element in the puzzle. He made precise measurements of the masses of many different atoms, among them hydrogen and helium. Aston found that four hydrogen nuclei were heavier than a helium nucleus. This was not the principal goal of the experiments he performed, which were motivated in large part by looking for isotopes of neon. The importance of Aston's measurements was immediately recognized by Sir Arthur Eddington, the brilliant English astrophysicist. Eddington argued in his 1920 presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science that Aston's measurement of the mass difference between hydrogen and helium meant that the sun could shine by converting hydrogen atoms to helium. This burning of hydrogen into helium would (according to Einstein's relation between mass and energy) release about 0.7% of the mass equivalent of the energy. In principle, this could allow the sun to shine for about a 100 billion years. In a frighteningly prescient insight, Eddington went on to remark about the connection between stellar energy generation and the future of humanity:

If, indeed, the sub-atomic energy in the stars is being freely used to maintain their great furnaces, it seems to bring a little nearer to fulfillment our dream of controlling this latent power for the well-being of the human race---or for its suicide.